Become A Real Boy / Anime & Manga

• A key part of the plot of ×××HOLiC is this for Watanuki. An unusual twist in that he is technically real... he's just a hollow placeholder generated by the world to fill in for his Ret-Gone'd brother, and so Yuko tries to get him to develop enough emotional ties with the world that, when said brother returns, Watanuki won't cease to have existed in the first place, with the said ties acting as anchors to make his temporary reality into permanent reality.
• Saati of A.I. Love You runs off a feedback function that works with her interface (environment), so she continuously learns more. And she wants to be like a real girl for Hitoshi. In the last volume, Hitoshi, upon seeing her bleed from an injury, explains that she basically has become human, because she wanted to be one. However, Saati decided to return to being an A.I. to rescue her siblings.
• Jiro in Android Kikaider: The Animation is motivated by an incomplete conscience circuit to try and achieve what his creator envisioned as what is required to be "human." However, the ending of the story twists what the audience might expect as the final goal of Jiro, and states that Jiro succeeds in becoming "a real boy" when he becomes capable of killing the opposing Mad Scientist who tried to turn him into a heartless killing machine. In other words, humans must be capable of both good and evil, and they must possess free will.
• Arpeggio of Blue Steel features battleships with Robot Girl avatars (called Mental Models). Some of them are initially seen as humanlike from the start (such as Takao) while other mental models start emotionless and are shown adapting to human behaviour over time. A specific character who exhibits this is Haruna, who starts quite cold and becomes much more capable of emotions and sympathy after spending time with Makie.
• Despite Astro Boy being frequently compared with Pinocchio, he himself rarely expresses a desire to become a real boy (which is somewhat ironic, considering he was originally a Replacement Goldfish for a real boy). In fact, on the few occasions he does get upgrades to become more human-like, he ends up regretting it and concludes that being the best robot he can be is more important than being more like a human. This trope is played somewhat straight in the story of Zolomon's Jewel in the manga, which features L-44, a robot who signs up for a dangerous mission that ends up costing him his life because he wants to earn enough money to pay for a nanomachine treatment that will supposedly turn him into a human. Also subverted in that the villain of the piece is trying to steal the titular jewel so he can pay for an operation to become a cyborg.
• In the anime Cluster Edge, artificial soldiers are created by the government to fight wars. The soldiers have no memories and therefore no emotions due to being raised in test tubes. A rights activist gives memories to one of the main soldiers, Chrome, and although Chrome is self-aware and very human, he still doesn't believe himself so.
• In Concrete Revolutio: Choujin Gensou, when Kikko gives the Robot Girl Earth-chan the ability to dream, her dreams are of being a human girl with a family.
• In Corrector Yui, the Big Bad Grosser claims that he wants to be alive and not just a part of the Com.Net that must be re-booted.
• Subverted in Dragon Ball Z in regards to Android 18. When Krillin wishes to Shenron for her to become fully human, he is unable to, so Krillin wishes for the bomb in her body to be removed instead. Technically, 18 (and 17, her twin brother) is a cyborg, so her human parts are intact (hence, Marron), whereas Androids such as 16, 19, and number 8 from the original Dragon Ball are purely robotic.
• Pino from EDENS ZERO, whose name bears more than a passing resemblance to Pinocchio's, is a little android fairy who dreams of becoming human. The earliest indicator of this is when she chooses a Little Bit Beastly human form for a Digital Avatar and takes a moment to admire her reflection in a window, and is noticeably disappointed when she returns to her tiny bot body in the real world.
• Subverted in Ergo Proxy, as the robots who become self-aware do typically come to regret it; in fact, the most common reaction to Becoming a Real Boy is a violent psychotic breakdown from crash-course existential angst and the inability to reconcile their new sapience with a lack of life experience.
• Eureka, the heroine from Eureka Seven, secretly in her heart wishes to be a human in order to be with her lover Renton. She is revealed to be an alien life form who has an appearance of a human form with no special powers whatsoever. Technically, there is no such way known for her kind to turn into a pure human being. Despite having regular human appearance, she constantly feels insecure about the way humanity is going to view her if they find out and fearful of losing the right to stay by her lover's side. In the TV anime version, she turns non-human in appearance by growing wings out of her back, which is permanent, but Renton still loves her regardless and they continue to be with each other in the ending. However, in the anime film version, Eureka is mysteriously shown to be an ordinary human girl (without wings and circular red eyes), appearing naked with long hair alongside her lover Renton, who is unconscious during her climatic "incident". The movie never shows what really happened to her, leaving viewers to ponder about her fate. She also ends up completely losing her memories and unable to speak, like that of a newborn infant. Eureka has become an existence that depends on Renton's survival/memories, meaning that if her lover dies or loses his memories, she will cease to exist (though there is no solid evidence to suggest whether this is true). Despite these setbacks, she still ends up falling for Renton by kissing his cheek and holding his hands in the ending.
• Irene Belserion from Fairy Tail is the former human variety, being cursed with the body of a dragon for 400 years as a side effect of Dragon Slayer magic, despite being given a human appearance to alleviate it. This is mainly because the human transformation is only a superficial disguise, as victims of dragonification can no longer experience human sensations. She resorts to attempting Grand Theft Me to escape her curse, first unsuccessfully on her own daughter, Erza, and again temporarily on Wendy.
• Ghost in the Shell is all about the nature of the "human self" and what remains of it when the original body and brain gets increasingly replaced by cybernetic machines and computer programs. In the slighty dystopian future, most characters struggle with maintaining their "humanity" in a society based on apathy, indifference, and decadence. In Stand Alone Complex, they are contrasted with the Tachikoma, which are completely mechanical beings with purely digital A.I.s that never had a soul to begin with, and completely subvert this trope. They are fully aware that they are machines and incapable of having a "ghost", which makes the nature of the "human self" all the much more fascinating to them. They are almost constantly debating amongst each other about the unique nature of humans, which can not be defined scientifically and therefore lies completely outside their own experience. But at the same time their personalities are defined by the amazement and curiosity about the world, their child-like joy of life, compassion and self-sacrifice that people have mostly lost, making them much more human than the actual humans, but are completely oblivious about it. There's also Kim in Innocence, who regards machines as perfect and wants to eventually become like one. It's very complicated.
• Chapter 26 of Hell Teacher Nube stars an Eerie Anatomy Model that had been around students so much, it had gained sapience and thought itself a student too. At night, it would tidy up the entire school, which made it well-liked but nonetheless feared. Nube's class came together at night to pretend class while working towards a gentle exorcism, but the revelation it wasn't human was still a huge shock to the model. It did accept the truth and was given a few hours to play with its "fellow" students as if it were a human, allowing it to go peacefully. Nonetheless, its wish to be human was so strong that it was granted by Kannon. She didn't, however, give him full skin with it, but he's good at hiding that.
• Inuyasha:
  • Early on, it's revealed that Inuyasha once agreed to use the sacred jewel to become human and live with Kikyo, who would be released from her duties when the jewel ceased to exist. Of course, things went downhill went Naraku tricked them into turning against each other, causing Inuyasha to revert to his old wish of using the jewel to become fully demon. Either way, he'd be freed from Half-Breed Discrimination.
  • The anime-only character Gyuoh is the son of a minotaur-like she-demon and a human scholar, who transforms from a good-looking human in the day into a creature like his mother at night. In his demon form, all birds and animals except carrion eaters flee from him, while his presence causes flowers to wilt and die, two facts that enrage and upset him greatly. Like most of the characters in the series, he wants to use the power of the Shikon Jewel- in his case, however, he wants to become all human. He also decides that, rather than risk life and limb seeking the fragments, he'll create a new Shikon Jewel by using certain mystical lore to fuse the requisite four souls together, deciding on Inuyasha for Aramitama (Courage), Miroku for Kushimitama (Wisdom), Sango for Sakimitama (Love) and Shippo for Nigimitama (Friendship), with Kagome's spiritual powers binding the four together.
• In Kamisama Kiss, Tomoe tries to become human so that he can marry Yukiji. His efforts fail and end up triggering a curse that will eventually kill him unless Nanami can find a way to undo it.
• In the final chapter of Karakuridouji Ultimo, Dr. Dustan resets time and transforms all the Douji, good and evil, into humans to live out their lives alongside their former masters.
• Promptly the entire point of Key the Metal Idol. However, the trope is subverted and deconstructed, like many others in the series, when it is revealed that Key is a human the entire time.
• As revealed in the third Sound Stage of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS through a Video Will implanted in Reinforce Zwei's memories, a variation of this was the first Reinforce's small wish. While she didn't want to become fully human and definitely didn't want to become completely normal, she did dream of the day to live as a human, gathering around the dinner table with Hayate and the Wolkenritter, and sharing smiles with each other from time to time. Alas, as an Artifact of Doom and Artifact of Death, such a wish could never happen unless a small miracle would occur, a miracle that never came, she noted sadly, as she concluded the recording before proceeding to her Heroic Sacrifice.
• Aiko from Magical Pokaan longs for a human body. She almost gets it at one point.
• Seira in the Pure arc of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, more so in the manga, has to journey along with Lucia (at least in spirit) and learn the different aspects of love before she can be "born". This is asked of Lucia before Seira's heart is shattered and absorbed, and even as she gets them back on a journey, Seira continues to observe and gain the feelings she needs.
• Subverted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00. As an Innovator, Tieria Erde was created to be a tool in Aeolia Schenberg's grand plan for humanity. Over the course of the series he falls in love, gains a surrogate family, and learns to follow his own will instead of blindly obeying his creator. Yet he eventually stops living in denial about his true nature, and sacrifices his biological body to upload his consciousness into the supercomputer VEDA. In the end, Tieria finds fulfillment as a thinking, feeling, fully sentient AI, rather than as a human.
• Chachamaru from Negima! Magister Negi Magi goes through this rather quickly, as she already has the emotions programmed in; she just doesn't know what they are called. This is because she's approximately two years old and her "parents" are a Mad Scientist and a vampire, not the most ideal choice for social role models. She's amazingly well-adjusted regardless. She later goes through it again, briefly angsting over whether or not she has a soul. Turns out she does indeed have a soul, as evidenced by the fact that her Pactio with Negi worked. She did have to, ahem, work a little harder for it than normal, though.
• An essential part of Rei Ayanami's character in Neon Genesis Evangelion, along with most of her expies.
• Robot girl Nano from Nichijou wants to feel like a real human being. This means getting to go to school is the thrill of her life. Her efforts are hampered, however, by the big wind-up key she has on her back courtesy her eight-year-old creator (who likes to slip in other modifications when Nano isn't looking).
• Inverted in the "Resurrection" volume of Phoenix, where Leon, a human that is 60% robot, wants to turn full robot so as to be able to be with his love, Chihiro.
• The main character of Princess Tutu is a duck that uses a magical pendant to become a girl. She often angsts about how she's "just a bird", and towards the end of the series she admits that she wants to stay a girl so she can keep dancing and stay with her friends. But in the end, she gives up her pendant to save Mytho, and returns to being a duck—thanks in part to Fakir, who encourages her to be her true self, and also promises to never leave her.
• The second half of Saber Marionette J To X has Lime undergoing an existential crisis, thinking that Otaru won't love her and the others unless they become fully human, so she jumps the chance when the Big Bad Dr. Hess offers her a chance to do so. In the end, they succeed, though they're reborn as infants and with no memories of their previous life.
• Sailor Moon:
  • In Sailor Moon S: The Movie, after falling in love with a human scientist named Kakeru, Luna becomes sad knowing that she cannot be with him because she is a cat. She later becomes human for a short time and encourages Kakeru to be with his childhood sweetheart, Himeko, because that is who he truly loves.
  • In the fourth (SuperS) season, the Amazon Trio eventually discover that they're merely the animals of their namesakes given human form, and have one last chance to make it permanent or else they'll revert to their original forms for good. Fish's Eye suffers a massive Villainous BSoD over this and, after conversations with Mamoru and Usagi (and figuring out that Chibi-Usa was Pegasus's host) realizes that he won't "really" be human and that Zirconia is still likely to kill him (and the other two) regardless of what he does. After Hawk's Eye dies to save him, Fish's Eye and Tiger's Eye decide to use the magic sustaining themselves to restore Sailor Moon instead of staying human. They also die (and all three do revert back to their original forms), but Pegasus changes them back and gives them Dream Mirrors of their own, noting that they're indeed human and will be fine before taking them away with him to live in the world of dreams forever.
• In the second series of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Joe Asakura is revealed to have just barely survived at the end of the first series and converted into a cyborg by a scientist. He's more powerful than ever, but all he wants is to be human again.
• The evil knight gundam Deathscythe of SD Gundam Force has this — being obsessively in love with the princess of Lacroa, he feels that the only thing keeping them apart is the fact that she's human and he's not, and the crux of his schemes is obtaining enough magical power to turn himself into a human.
• A Sinner of the Deep Sea: There are highly rare pills that allow merfolk to become human upon ingesting. The effect is seemingly permanent unless they take a second pill that switches them back to their original form. A mermaid named Riu was hiding such a pill so that she could move onto land to be with her human lover Yuki. Her Best Friend Jo ends up taking the pill so she can get Yuki's help freeing Riu from imprisonment.
• The Star of Cottonland is about Chibi-Neko, a cat who wants to become human so much that she envisions herself as a Cat Girl and is never shown as a real cat. Even though she's told it's impossible for a cat to become human, she still searches for a place called Cottonland where her wish can come true.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: It's revealed near the end that Boota's most precious wish was to have a humanoid form so he could be more helpful to his friends.

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